Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh.
- William Pulteney Alison
- Date:
- [1841]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Further illustrations of the practical operation of the Scotch system of management of the poor / by W.P. Alison, M.D., &c., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![Such observations point out, likewise, the true mode of applying statis- tical in formation to the practical question,—what restrictions, or retrench- ments, on the legal relief afforded against destitution are prudent, and likely to be permanently useful, and what are excessive and injurious ? The only general rule I believe to be, that all such restrictions as tend practically to degrade the poor, to escape which they will lower their habits, and bring up their families in filth and penury, however temporarily economical, will be ultimately injurious. In a former paper I have brought forward a number of facts to prove, that while pauperism and the legal cost of the poor have been kept down in Scotland, much below what we find in England or in other countries, where an effective legal provision exists, destitution has made rapid progress; and the condition of the poor in Scotland is not only no subject of gratulation, but one of deep regret and alarm, to every one who is really at pains to study it. And I can no-w refer to a very considerable number of documents, made public since that paper was published, which fully confirm my statements,—-first, as to the amount of existing destitution in Scotland, the inadequacy of the relief given, and of all other existing resources, in averting much suffering and consequent degradation from large numbers of the poor who are admitted to the legal provision ; secondly, the number of cases, even of extreme destitution, in which all parochial relief is refused; thirdly, the excessive burden, of relief to the misery surrounding them, which is thus laid on the indus- trious classes of society; fourthly, the accumulation of destitution in the towns, which under a different system of management finds adequate relief in country districts; and lastly, the general redundancy of the population, greatest in districts where the existing Poor Laws are not enforced, and where the legal relief given is admitted to be illusory; and, in connection with this, the extension of epidemic disease. In proof of all these points, I may refer to the Plea of the Poor of Scotland, for an Inquiry into their Condition, by the Rev. Dr. Burns, of Paisley ; (an author who has previously written on the subject of pauperism in Scotland, and is allowed on all hands to be practically well informed in regard to it;) to the facts contained in the Rev. Mr. Lewis'*s State of St. David's Parish, Dundee ; those contained in the Remarks on the Circumstances and Claims of the Indigent Poor, and the Inade- quacy of the present System of Parochial Relief in Scotland, by Charles Scott, Esq., Session Clerk at Peterhead. I may refer to the very important Police Return, by Captain Miller, at Glasgow, of the cir- cumstances of 1,038 destitute families visited by himself, and partially relieved there last winter; to the Memorandum on certain Results arising out of the Bills of Mortality of the City of Glasgow, and which bear on the Condition and Management of the Poor, lately published by direction of the Town Council of Glasgow ; to the Report on the Local Census of Lanarkshire, by Alexander Watt, just published ; and to the Reports on the Sanatory Condition of various Towns in Scotland, lately drawn up under the direction of the Poor Law Commissioners; par- ticularly to that on Glasgow, by Mr. Baird; on Ayr, by Dr. Sym ; on Dumfries, by Dr. M’‘Lellan ; on Musselburgh, by Dr. Stevenson; on Lanark, by Mr. Gibson. 1 may refer to the proofs of extreme destitu- tion, and enormously redundant and still increasing population, (by no means solely referable] to the change of the duties on kelp, but accumu-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24929761_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
